Quantum or not, controversial computer runs no faster than a normal one

June 19, 2014 6:21 PM

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The D-Wave computer, marketed as a groundbreaking quantum machine that runs circles around conventional computers, solves problems no faster than an ordinary rival, a new test shows. Some researchers call the test of the controversial device, described online today in Science, the fairest comparison yet. But D-Wave argues that the computations used in the study were too easy to show what its novel chips can do.

"This is likely the most thorough and precise study that has been done on the performance of the D-Wave machine," says Helmut Katzgraber, a computational physicist at Texas A&M University, College Station, who was not involved in the work. However, Colin Williams, a quantum-computer scientist and D-...